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...Contrasts and Comparisons in NeighborRosicky
The unique play of opposites demonstrated in NeighborRosicky shows how core beliefs and individuality are always fundamental and necessary regardless of the environment or people surrounding an individual. Rosicky is a charismatic individual who is admired by all people because of his value of hard work and compassion. The settings Rosicky found himself in were not always as welcoming as the comfortable farm he ends up in, but even so his values ultimately bring him to a place he feel he belongs. These contrasts help highlight the similarities among the main character’s fundamental beliefs. Even though they are from different cultures, age, gender, and societies, the family’s core values are what unify them.
Rosicky’s personality greatly contrasts with the environment in his early years. In Rosicky’s youth, he lives in thrilling and eventful New York and London. While in New York, he enjoys the excitement of the night life. In his youthful prime there is nothing more enjoyable than being on his own with a world of entertainment to observe and a variety of people to meet. But this youthful excitement clearly runs dry fast for Rosicky. The temporary excitement fades when there is lack of nature. "Those blank buildings, without the stream of life pouring through them, were like empty jails. It struck young Rosicky...

...Willa Cather was born in Virginia and moved with her family to Nebraska when she was nine. Here she got the inspiration to describe the American West of that time, and she succeeded thanks to her talent and a strong sense of the place. Her unique ability of presenting people's relationships, their fates, and the beauty of the nature harmonically, made her name famous and her novels captivating. More than that WillaCather's works express the penetrating global idea of intercultural dependency intertwined with the universal story of the rise of civilizations in history. This particular literary technique became a matter for many discussions by many critics and the topic for many research works.
Having read several novels by Willa Cather we also realized this distinctive feature  her peculiar way in depicturing history being very clear, simple, and accurate. This pushed us to identify and later compare it with other academic works and improve it with further research. We decided to make a parallel between her two very famous novels O'Pioneers and Death Comes for the Archbishop, the histories of the American frontier and the American West, and emphasize the peculiarity of author's technique.
Awards came to Cather during her life time -- honorary degrees from numerous universities, the Pulitzer Prize for "One of Ours," a medal by the American Academy for "Death Comes for the Archbishop,"...

...Neighbour Rosicky
By Willa Cather (pg 1831-1852)
At first glance, Neighbour Rosicky appears to be a short story about a farmer and his family; however, there is much more beneath the surface. Rosicky is a representation of immigrants, in general. He is the epitome of the "American Dream," with slight alterations. The "American Dream" is supposed to be about having a loving spouse with 2 children, a little dog, and a white picket fence; however, people have added in wealth and larger houses to the original simple dream.
Rosicky is a very family oriented man, and feels himself to be of no use unless he is working. Cather writes about Rosicky as a sort of emblem for the human race which is becoming lazy and degenerated. Modernist writers see that people have changed their "American Dreams" to be about greed, and their lives are not simple, people are becoming more corrupt, as a whole, and not fixating on the important, simple things in life. Rosicky is about the simpler things in life, he is about family, and hard work; he does not feel the need to be wealthy or obtain more possessions than his neighbor.
Rosicky's demeanor is comparable to Harper Lee's character, Atticus Finch; in To Kill A Mockingbird, with both characters, what you see is what you get. Neighbors would whisper about Rosicky, "wondering why Rosicky...

...The Captain Forrester and His Roses
In WillaCather's A Lost Lady, Captain Daniel Forrester is a gardener at heart. His lifetime is spent encouraging growth, whether of railroads, personal lives or flowers. His philosophy is to dream "because a thing that is dreamed of in the way I mean is already an accomplished fact" (44). Close friends described the Captain as clearly looking like " pictures of Grover Cleveland. His clumsy dignity covered a deep nature, and a conscience that had never been juggled with" (39). Because of his clear conscience Captain Forrester became a rich soil for many around him to take root in. As this soil, he could always be in the background and many never noticed how important he was until he was missed. Once the Captain's career outside his home ended he truly opens up to the peacefulness of nature, including his flowers, which eventually illustrate the phases of his life.
The location of the Forrester's homes gives a hint towards Captain Forrester's dreams throughout his life. They had seasonal homes, spending " winter in Denver and Colorado Springs,-left Sweet Water soon after Thanksgiving and did not return until the first of May" (23). Of three places they stayed during the year, two of them had optimistic names, encouraging ideas of eternal springs, which would be wonderful places for gardening. During the summer at Sweet Water, "The wild roses were wide open and brilliant, the blue-eyed grass...

...after his arrival, the Burdens go to meet their new neighbors, the Shimerdas. Jim meets Mr. Shimerda, an educated musician, Mrs. Shimerda a shrewish woman who comes across as demanding, the eldest son Ambrosch, Marek, Yulka, and the eldest daughter Antonia.
Soon after meeting, Antonia and Jim become friends. The Shimerdas unfortunately are not faring well in their new country, but do eventually become friends with Peter and Pavel, two Russian men. Jim and Antonia become even closer, after Jim impresses her by killing a snake. Winter follows, Jim gets very ill, and Pavel passes away. Peter then decides to move away, which greatly upsets Mr. Shimerdas. Right in the middle of one of the largest snowstorms that Nebraska had seen in ten years. Mr. Shimerda commits suicide after neatly arranging himself in the barn. The following day when Jim is left alone in the house, he then feels Mr. Shimerda's spirit. The Shimerda family insist that Mr. Shimerda’s body must be buried on their property. While unorganized, the funeral ceremony is very moving. After this, the Burdens and a few other neighbors come together as one in a combined effort to aid the Shimerdas. In order to help her family, Antonia stops attending school and begins farming in the fields just as a man would. Jim becomes resentful that Antonia is no longer able to spend as much time with him as he would have liked. The Shimerdas briefly upset their neighbors...

...WillaCather’s My Anthonia, in my opinion was not only easy to read but also a thoroughly enjoyable read. It tells the vivid stories of several immigrant families who move to the rural state of Nebraska to start new lives in America. A Bohemian family, by the name of the Shimerdas, is one of the main focal points of the story. The eldest daughter of the Shimerda family is named Antonia. The book's narrator, Jim Burden, arrives in the town of Black Hawk, Nebraska, on the same train as the Shimerdas. He is going to live with his grandparents after his parents have passed away. Jim develops very strong feelings for Antonia, feelings which border on a filial bond with a hint of sexual attraction. The reader views Antonia's life through that lens. The book itself is divided into five volumes. The volumes are almost paralleled to the stages of Antonia's life, right through her marriage and motherhood. However, the third volume, known as, "Lena Lingard," focuses more on Jim's time at university and his affair with Lena, another childhood friend of his and Antonia's. The five books, that make up My Antonia are, ‘‘The Shimerdas’’, which is the largest book of all. It covers all of the time that Jim spends on his grandparent’s farm out on the prairie. ‘’The Hired Girls’’, which is the second largest. ‘’The Hired Girls’’ covers Jim's time in town, where he spends time with Anthonia and the other country girls who work in town. In this book, language and...

..."The Flying Dutchman" -- the only piece Georgiana recognized by name -- she has started to move her fingers across her knee as if she is playing the piano, and by the intermission she has started to cry uncontrollably.
When the concert ends at last, the other members of the audience applaud, murmur appreciatively, start to leave; the musicians rise from their seats, tapping the spit out of their woodwinds and brasses, putting their instruments into cases or slipjackets. Aunt Georgiana, however, does not move. Still sobbing, she tells Clark, "I don't want to go, Clark, I don't want to go!" It isn’t merely that she doesn’t want to leave the concert hall; she doesn’t want to return to a gray and ugly world, where music has no part.
WillaCather's "A Wagner Matinee"
Commentary by Karen Bernardo
In "A Wagner Matinee," the narrator, a young Bostonian named Clark, is notified that his aunt is coming to visit from Nebraska. Clark tells us that his aunt Georgiana once lived in Boston herself, long before Clark’s birth; in her youth she was a music teacher, but she married a farmer and has had a difficult life.
As Georgiana emerges from the train, she looks so shabby Clark is almost ashamed of her; but her shell-shocked expression evokes his pity. It becomes apparent that in her years on the prairie, Georgiana has put out of her mind all of the cosmopolitan things she loved, particularly classical music -- which, in these days before recordings,...

...Sarah Snow
Paper 3
Writing in the Discipline of English
October 10, 2012
Central Themes in A Lost Lady
* In WillaCather’s A Lost Lady (1923), the author tells a story of a boy named Neil who’s growth into manhood is molded by the Forresters; the Captain who represented the pioneer spirit of the old west in the United States, and the beautiful Marian whom he idolized to such an extent that her moral downfall initiated his loss of innocence. As he grows up, his family, friends, and his home of Sweet Water change. Where the Forresters were once the pillars of grandeur and dignity, they fall into poverty and sickness. The Captain’s passing signifies the end of a time when those who shaped the country prospered in its unsoiled splendor. Marian’s affair and her surrender to Ivy Peter’s signifies the change to an age when moral compromises became commonplace, and the land is raped of its natural wonder to gain money and power. Loss, change, and growth from change shape his character, just as the relationships of those around him to the land display the changes in society and the end of the pioneer era.
* Of the many themes Cather presents, one of importance is the relationship the characters have with nature. Captain Forrester represents the awe and splendor of progression and advancement that does not spoil the environment. Even though he is a hardy railroad man who made his fortune laying train tracks across the country for...